


Card Tricks

by Pinapples



Series: The one about the Dragonborn, Khajiit and the High Elf [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Beginnings of unresolved sexual tension, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Interesting NPCs Mod (Elder Scrolls), Pining, Romance, but just on the cusp of that Oh moment, card tricks, disaster bisexual refuses to acknowledge feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinapples/pseuds/Pinapples
Summary: Zora likes to gossip. Especially if that gossip pertains to a certain Dragonborn and her traveling companion.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Rumarin
Series: The one about the Dragonborn, Khajiit and the High Elf [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979753
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Card Tricks

.***.

Card Tricks

.***.

.

.

.

“What?” Akhara fixed Zora with a look as the breton sat down next to her, the tavern already rather lively. “You look like the cat that swallowed the pheasant.” 

“Are you saying I look like a fat cat?” Zora pretended to pout, elbowing her. 

“No.” Akhara narrowed her eyes. “Why are you giving me that look?” 

Zora smiled, leaning on the table, lacing her fingers underneath her chin, resting her head on it. “I’m just pleased my Thane has found a traveling companion she likes so much.” 

“Wh- are you talking about Rumarin?” 

Zora’s stare continued to bore a hole into her. Akhara shifted in her seat. Glancing over to the far side of the inn, where the elf in question sat. Cards splayed out on the small table in front of him. A group of children and several onlookers surrounding it while he made a show of shuffling the deck. 

“Why? Do you not like him?” she looked back to Zora, watching how she rested her delicate chin on her hands. 

“Oh, I adore him!” Zora gushed. “I’ve never met a high elf with a sense of humor before.” 

She watched the way he held a card between his long fingers in front of the children. Making it disappear with a flourish. “He’s a bit insufferable. Especially when he’s hungry.” 

“You said he was a good cook!” the back of Zora’s hand playfully swatting her arm. “And he comes from a family of troubadours. How romantic.” 

“Romantic?” Akhara shook her head at the breton woman, “are we talking about the same elf?” There were plenty of words she would use to describe Rumarin, but romantic wasn’t one of them. 

“Yes, troubadours have such a romantic life.” Zora’s smile bringing out small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. “It reminds me of the time before the war, when traveling bards and poets would pass by Riverwood on their way to Solitude.” 

A little boy stood before him, pulling a group of cards from the stack and setting them into two piles. Rumarin gathered both the piles and shuffled them in mid-air. Picking a card at random and handing it back. She fought back a smile at the boy’s bewildered face as he took the card.

Zora watched next to her, chin in her hand. “I used to love art, you know. I would imagine myself married to a wealthy noble and tutored by the world’s most brilliant artists. In the long hours I would sit by the window and paint the white river.” 

Rumarin shuffled the deck, splaying the cards out, saying things she couldn’t hear as he placed random cards back down on the table until only one remained in his hand. 

Zora took a drink. “Now I just paint the snow with bandits.” 

Another child pulled a card from the deck, cupping their hands over it to shield it from Rumarin’s eyes before putting it back. Something twisted in her chest as she watched him laugh. The sound completely drowned out by the chatter and music in the rowdy Tavern. 

“Admit it, you love painting the snow with bandits.”

She saw his mouth moving as he asked the little boy questions, knowing that he was distracting them with some joke or tall tale. 

“If only bandits bled different colors,” Zora said wistfully, “we could be artists.”

He flipped a card from the middle of the deck. The motion was so smooth and quick you’d be hard-pressed to see it up close. _Or, maybe if you weren’t staring at him,_ she reprimanded. The child’s face lighting up when Rumarin shook the card, its number changing in a flash to the one the child originally picked. 

Akhara drummed her fingers along the side of her face, watching the line of his shoulders while he shuffled the cards again. He was sitting, half slouching over the small table to be the same height as most of the children. One of the little girls in the crowd was hanging on his arm, trying to watch the cards from the other angle, not quite tall enough to see over his shoulder.

“What is _that_ look?” Zora teased. 

Akhara raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s nothing.” 

“‘Kara, secrets don’t make friends.” 

“It’s… nothing,” She said again. Rumarin caught her eye from across the crowded room, grinning before turning back to the child. Heat traveled up the back of her neck. 

“That’s an awful lot of nothing,” Zora said, stretching. “I wonder if our favorite bladebinder knows that we’ve been staring at him for the last several minutes.” 

“No.” She took a drink, shaking her head. “He’s too busy playing card tricks for the locals.” 

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” Zora smiled. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

Zora’s smile only widened. “My rival sister, keeping the handsome elf for herself. I’m sure if you _asked_ he would do the card tricks for you.” 

Akhara rolled her eyes. Leaning back in the chair. “I’ve seen him do those a hundred times. Maybe you should be the one asking him for a card trick.” 

“I wouldn’t mind if he did the one where pulls a coin from my ear.” Zora ran a finger along the rim of her mug. “Besides, he’s not really my type. I like them funny, not childish. And he’s too tall.”

Akhara let out a laugh. He wasn’t… childish. Okay, he was sometimes. But most of the time he was… she swallowed the lump in her throat. He was… staring at her from all the way on the other side of the inn, one eyebrow raised in a silent question- 

_Is something wrong?_

Heat flushed up to her ears as Zora whispered, “perfect height for you though.” The breton smiling behind her drink. 

.***.

**Author's Note:**

> Fellas, is there anything more adorable than a romantic interest being cute and entertaining children?
> 
> Zora: oh do you Like him? ;)  
> Akhara *blushing from head to toe while being unable to take her eyes off the idiot in question*: no?  
> Of note: Akhara is like 6 feet tall. I'm guestimating that Ru is 6'7". And that Zora is probably like 5'1" lol. I love Zora so much!!! I imagine she's quite observant. The conversations you can have with her and Rumarin where they gossip about each other are some of my favourites!


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